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Wednesday, 6. February 2013

I visited the ZLB’s Haus Amerika and was given a tour and introduction by longtime performing arts (Music, Theatre, Dance) librarian Susanne Hein. She explained the history of the library, which represents a merging of several venerable Berlin institutions. The ZLB is Germany’s largest public library, boasting over 2 million books and journals and more than 20,000 videos/DVDs/Blu Rays. The patron base of the Haus Amerika is remarkable, particularly in the music department: everyone from members of the Berlin Philharmonic to graduate students at Humboldt-Universität to transient Berliners with an ear for music.

Haus Amerika is a large and imposing curved building, specially designed to welcome the east.

Anyone with an address in Germany, or for that matter, Europe, may obtain a library card and use this magnificent collection. I focused my visit on the fine music department, the strongest of Berlin’s public music libraries. It is complemented by many others in the city: Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Marzahn-Hellersdorf, and Pankow, for example. (A full directory of the city’s libraries may be found at www.voebb.de). However, only the ZLB offers on-site access to music databases like RILM, Grove Music Online, and Naxos Music Library. They are unfortunately not able to extend the licenses for use outside of the library due to budget restraints. Currently, there are only a few workstations set up with the databases.

A few notable items about the music library: the first is that they receive all CDs produced in Berlin as part of a depository program. These CDs are cataloged by accession number and kept in closed stacks, as opposed to the circulating titles in the main collection. The second is the Piano Room. Patrons can reserve the room to use one or both pianos. The pianos are in high demand and are also used for small performances.

Like other libraries in unified Germany, the music library has a large collection of East German music, books, and LPs that are cataloged using an old system and accessible only by card catalog. They also have older materials that were never cataloged. Susanne explained that the card catalog records are being digitized and that they always have new ideas for retrospective cataloging projects. The current OPAC works really well for music—for example, a patron can search for a song title without knowing which songbook has it. By searching for a song, the patron accesses the uniform title. The only way to make it easier would be if patrons could search by song lyrics!

Outside of the music library, the ZLB has a lot to offer. Patrons use RFID technology to check out their books and media, and children love to watch books go in and out of the circulation area via a building-wide conveyor system (there is a viewing room on the first floor). There are even individual rooms set up to emulate small cinemas, with high picture quality, dark curtains, and great sound. What’s more, the library is open until 8:00 pm five night a week. Everyone I spoke with at the ZLB was very welcoming and deservedly proud of this great library.

Tuesday, 5. February 2013

The library at the UdK has a complicated history: thanks to a grant from Volkswagen, the university, along with the Technische Universität, was able to open a new library and combine previously separate departments and libraries. The library opened in 2004.

I visited only the UdK part of the library, which alone boasts over 350,000 books, 70,000 scores, 50,000 DVDs/videos/Blu-rays, and 70,000 CDs, among other materials. Disciplines supported include art and architecture, design, communication, music, dance, theatre, and pedagogy.
Students have many places to work individually or together, can plug in laptops, and enjoy wifi. The UdK part of the library is distinctive, thanks in large part to creative exhibitions of student work, multimedia displays, and innovative use of everyday materials to display the university’s publishing house.

Frau Andrea Zeyns was kind enough to arrange two days at the UdK for me, including tours of the beautiful facility, and personal tutorials on the cataloging systems and programs unique to the library.

Despite the funding from Volkswagen, the library still relies on grants and outside funding to complete projects like retrospective cataloging and collection management. The library is currently without a special collections librarian, and many valuable materials wait to be cataloged.

Due to the unique sharing of the library between two universities, students have a variety of on-site benefits. For example, UdK students may use TU databases while at the library. Remotely, they may only use UdK earmarked resources. This is due largely to technical issues and funding.

The library offers a unique service of recording German television programming (Fernsehmitschnitt) for students to view. Staff members choose what to record based on what will be commercially available on DVD, and by faculty recommendation. They also record commercials, and catalog them so that students can find an advertisement by a specific company or with a certain theme. The library creates roughly 1,000 of these clips/programs each year. The titles are not eligible for inter-library loan, due to copyright restrictions. They are also not in union catalogs, like WorldCat.

And speaking of specialized cataloging, students may also browse films (feature and short, not television clips) by genre, not just subject headings and other access points. Students can also view an entire list of DVDs held by the library, and then sort by genre, title, etc. At my library, users frequently ask for a complete list, which we don’t offer—maybe we can try something based on this model.

I met with longtime librarian Frau Petra Wagenknecht, who spent several hours showing me the intricacies of the music catalog and explaining how the collocation works. For the record, this was the first time I had seen a catalog collocate correctly. The library has several systematic guides for each format (score, sound recording, etc) and carefully demarcates instrumentation, authors, performers, composers, etc. Students can search and explore these schemata (http://bit.ly/SimFn9). Even without understanding the back-end of the catalog, a student or user could easily find the exact score or CD using the catalog. However, it is hard to find the right music item using the discovery system (Primus), and students are advised to use an advanced search in the original OPAC. This is particularly true when searching for well-known musical pieces better known by their nicknames, like Beethoven’s Moonlight (Mondschein) Sonata.

I would like to thank everyone at the library who made my visit both pleasant and educational. Our library is already planning to implement some of these ideas.

Monday, 4. February 2013

I was very fortunate to work with Benjamin Blinten, formerly of the JFK Institute, and now head of the Social Sciences Library. Mr. Blinten talked with me about his new post, and specifically regarding outreach to promote the library and information literacy instruction. His library, although much smaller than mine, has a similar focus on partnering subject specialists with faculty members. When librarians work with students, they tend not to conduct typical lectures. Rather, they engage students by dividing them into groups and having students teach each other.

The Social Sciences library is in a unique position with the university: it is a conglomeration of many smaller, subject-specific collections, including political science, sociology, and Eastern European Studies. Featured prominently in the library is a display of gifts from Eastern European governments.

Because of how the library was established, Mr. Blinten and his staff are faced with a large ongoing weeding project. In many cases, each library had at least one copy of a title. Staff must also work on retrospective cataloging and conversion projects. The majority of records that need to be added to the online catalog are older than 1990.

Mr. Blinten explained the library education system to me, as it is quite different from the North American convention. Within the library world, there are three tiers. One level, is user services, or Fami. A person working in this area has a three year practical degree, on par to high school. A librarian has a BA (Fachhochschule) and is typically at a public library. An academic librarian has a master’s degree in information studies and a second (normally PhD) degree in another subject. To further complicate this, each state in Germany has a slightly different system for education. Conversely, in North America, typically a paraprofessional staff worker has a high school and possibly college degree, a public librarian has a master’s degree, and an academic librarian normally has two master’s degrees but it is not required.

Mr. Blinten then took me to the JFK Institute, one stop on the U-Bahn away from his library. I met with Ms. Angelika Krieser, the deputy librarian for the institute. The library is not limited to students at the FU and anyone who lives or studies in Berlin/Brandenburg may check out materials. The space has recently been renovated and offers a wide variety of options for students to work independently or in groups—for the most part with natural light from beautiful windows.

The JFK library has a strong collection of North American materials, including presidential papers, American movies, and regional histories. Between 2,500 and 3,000 monographs are added each year, but there is enough space to keep everything on-site. Materials are cataloged using Dewey Decimal; even though a German version of DDC exists, JFK uses the standard American one.

I was particularly impressed to see how the library has integrated print journals with electronic—if a user is browsing the physical titles, he or she can scan a QR code to be taken directly to the electronic version.

I also liked the portable, lockable carts that students can check out for the semester, which allows them to safely keep materials in the library but not be limited to a stationary locker.

Finally, Ms. Krieser talked to me about the relationship that the JFK Institut (and all of the branch libraries) have with the main university library. The UB makes the overarching decisions in terms of software, cataloging systems and practices within the FU, and ordering/administration of eBooks, but they do not dictate budgets for branches.

Although I only saw two of the FU’s many libraries, I did get a sense for the university and its rich history. The campus, in stark contrast to Humboldt and UdK, feels like a forest that is still convenient to everything that Berlin has to offer.

I would like to thank Mr. Blinten and Ms. Krieser for their hospitality and for sharing these amazing places with me.